**3. China's major sugarcane production areas**

The major sugarcane production area in China is located between latitude 18.5°N and 32°N and longitude 92°E and 122°E, including Guangxi, Yunnan, Guangdong, Hainan, Fujian, Taiwan, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Guizhou, Hunan, and Jiangxi provinces (or autonomous regions). Before the late 1980s, coastal areas in southeastern China such as Guangdong and Fujian were the main sugarcane producing areas. Since then, sugarcane production gradually shifted from southeast to southwest. So, the current major production areas include Guangxi, Yunnan, western Guangdong, and Hainan. The combined sugar production from these provinces accounted for over 90% of the total production in China [4]. Dominant production regions in these provinces were central-south in Guangxi, southwest in Yunnan, western in Guangdong, and northern in Hainan (**Figure 4**).

**Figure 4.** Sugarcane production areas in China.

Despite this increase in area, there are a number of obstacles to continue future acreage expansion. Although a few years ago sugarcane area in China was much more than it is now, this land was planted with fruit trees and eucalyptus trees with a very long production cycle. As a result, even with higher prices, it will not be possible to easily bring this land back into cane production. Mechanization levels are still low in China for sugarcane, and the hilly terrain in much of the production area makes mechanization adoption for harvesting difficult. Production costs continue to be very high. In fact, the price of labor for harvesting sugarcane can make up more than a third of the total cane purchase price [5]. Among major sugar producing countries, China has the highest production costs, with these as much as double those in neighboring Thailand. High production costs and inefficiencies have made Chinese sugar production uncompetitive with other countries, and also it is one of the reasons why the sugar industry approached the Chinese government to request a safeguard investigation into sugar imports for next 3 years (2017–2020).
